13.7.10 A far as I can tell I can ony add to this page by editing the whole page. New posts go onto the Home page. How disappointing.
Anyway, yesterday the skip full of subsoil from the soakaway was removed. It was good to see the stretch to the orchard flat again, even if the skip lorry did break the new man-hole cover!
Today we heard about some topsoil going begging, so Dave borrowed a trailer from Alan over the road and fetched 3 loads. We are expecting two tons of topsoil from the builders merchants, but it wouldn't have been enough, and making use of someone else's cast-offs is much more in keeping with the ethos of our improvements! We really want to get the area round the playhouse finished and safe before the boys come in August.
19th July 2010
Off to GP this morning for my pre-treatment blood tests, also seeing GP to ask for symptom relief for the bad days.
Can't get dirty in the short time before I catch the bus, so have been out and taken some garden photos.
Not getting on very well with moving these around the page but hopefully they convey a little of Dave's hard work. My only cheat was to move the peg basket off he omnipresent washing line!
August 7th 2010
Dave finally finished the little kitchen garden to the left of the Playhouse. I've planted rosemary, sage and tarragon in the three corners that are not by the entrance, also some chives and thyme and pricked out some lettuces. The big pot of mint has been moved into the centre of the paving. Everything will be accessible dryfoot in all but the worst of the winter weather. I am hoping to get the boys to help me plant radishes, baby carrots and some winter stuff like pak choy. Timing is always going to be difficult if they are going to see the fruit of their efforts, but we can always show them on Google video chat.
The photos don't really show how different that corner looks because the previous photos didn't show how messy it still was!
Peg-basket got in the picture this time!
One garden disaster: we have had to throw away our four Brussels Sprouts plants. Club root! Never had this before. They were my own plants grown from seed, so we have no idea where it came from. We have rotated our crops in the raised beds as well as we could, so it is very disheartening.
The soft fruit is doing well, still more red-currants than we can hope to use in spite of removing one of the bushes this year. Dave made wine with the produce of the early bush, and it is the best of the five we have on the go at the moment. The kit wine is very sweet, and the gooseberry very dry, so a bit of judicious blending may be called for.
The runner beans and 2 courgette plants are ensuring we are never stuck for a vegetable, and we can usually find enough carrots for the two of us. We'll be buying veg over the next fortnight though, with four extra appetites to satisfy. Apparently Joe and James decided they didn't like Dom's fresh from the garden vegetables, especially beans. Maybe Grandma's will be nicer!
20.9.10
I haven't done a lot in the garden in the last month until this afternoon. Sheila weeded my raised beds while they were here, all except a huge clump of dandelions which looked so green and healthy that she thought I ws growing a new type of salad. I dug them out this aftenoon and put some spring cabbage in the bed. We have decided to clear the club-root infested soil and while we are about it to rebuild the sides with new sleepers. The time-scale of this will probably mean we can't plant in this particular bed this year.
I have already caught up with the main blog today and am now dropping off over my laptop.
29.11.10
I haven't updated this page for more than two months, mainly bec ause I didn't feel I had done anything in the garden. Until September I was managing a week or so out of the three week chemo cycle to do some tidying, even some planting, but the tingling in my hands and feet is worse in the colder weather, and I suspect I have been left with some permanent nerve damage as my finger- and toe- tips are quite numb. Nevertheless things have been happening without much intervention from me.
We rediscovered a tidy sum of money in my National Savings investment account when I made up my accounts for the tax man. It had made a tenth of the interest we had from it last year, so clearly time to take it out. The result was a lovely new resin-bonded driveway, installed over seeveral days at the beginning of October. I photographed it for the 'Rhino man', the franchise operator who did the work, so here it is.
And just for good measure, here is a picture of the unseasonal November snow, taken from the bedroom window on 26th
28th September 2011
Nearly a year since I added to this page. I misunderstood the purpose of 'pages' and tried to createre an ongoing diary like the main blog. I have decided to wind this one up and do an occasional scrapbook style page. No doubt much of the main blog will concern the garden anyway, and maybe there will be an occasional collection of pictures on a 'page'
